So my transfer application to serve the remainder of my sentence in Canada is dead, I figure.
Despite getting approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and having the endorsement of my prosecutor, the judge who sentenced me, and Corrections Services Canada, the Conservative Minister of Public Safety Stephen Blaney isn't signing on.

Eight years ago today, on July 29th 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Vancouver Police raided my store in downtown Vancouver and had me arrested while in Halifax for a medical marijuana event. I faced extradition to the United States and life in federal prison, along with my employees Greg Williams and Michelle Rainey. I was extradited on May 20th 2010 for a five-year plea deal, and I'm told Canada has changed since I've been imprisoned here.

I've really enjoyed the continuing revelations about Canada's Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ marital and ministerial infidelities, the most recent being the disclosure by the group Anonymous that alleges Toews made a paramour of his, Catherine Everett, a member of the Manitoba judge's bench.

Today is November 1, 980 days to go till my release on July 9, 2014. There are two possible hopeful scenarios that could shorten that wait. One is the petition to "Pardon Marc Emery" which appears at www.WhiteHouse.gov in the "We The People" section. On September 22, that petition initiative website was launched and any petition that obtained 5,000 signatures within 30 days was promised a response from the White House.

Remember the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989? After 38 years, it just came down; no one predicted it. History was made by people making history, peaceful history, defying the powerful despots of East Germany. Then all the other Eastern European commissars and dictators were cast aside into the 'dustbin of history' within a year of that momentous but unanticipated event. Who knew the power of removing another brick from a wall?

I remember Irwin Cotler, Canada’s Justice Minister in the twilight of Paul Martin’s Liberal government, commenting that Canadians had developed a culture of tolerance for marijuana use in the nation. This was on the heels of the Senate Committee urging marijuana legalization, my 2003 Summer of Legalization Tour across all ten provinces of Canada, and our 6-3 Supreme Court loss attempting to find Canada’s marijuana prohibition laws unconstitutional.